Did ever an agent despatched on an important mission receive more satisfactory instructions? The object clearly defined, and the fullest discretion left to him as to the manner of carrying it out. Hastings, having selected the fittest agent to carry out his purpose, leaves everything to his judgment. Whatever would most effectively carry out the main purpose, that the agent was at perfect liberty to do, and time and money were freely at his disposal. “I want the thing done,” says Warren Hastings in effect, “and all you require to get it done you shall have.”
The only equally good instructions I have personally seen issued to an agent were given by Cecil Rhodes in Rhodesia. I travelled up to Fort Salisbury with Major Forbes, whom Rhodes had summoned from a place two months’ journey distant to receive instructions, for he did not believe in letters, but only in personal communication. After dinner Rhodes questioned Forbes most minutely as to his requirements, as to the condition of things, as to the difficulties which were likely to be encountered, and as to his ideas on how those difficulties should be overcome. He said he wanted to know now what Forbes required in order to accomplish the object in view, because he did not wish to see him coming back later on, saying he could have carried it out if only he had had this, that, or the other. Let him therefore say now whatever he required to insure success. All that he asked, and more than he asked, Rhodes gave him, and then despatched him, saying, “Now, I don’t want to hear of you again till I get a telegram saying your job is done.”
These are, of course, ideal methods of conveying instructions to an agent, which it is not always possible for a high official to give. Lord Curzon would, I know, have liked to give similar instructions to me, and, as far as providing money, staff, military support, etc., he did. But, with the closer interconnection of public affairs, public business is now so complicated that it is not, I suppose, possible to leave to an agent the same amount of discretion that Warren Hastings did to Bogle. Still, great results in many fields, and, what is more, great men, have been produced by the use of Warren Hastings’ method of selecting the fittest agent, and then leaving everything in his hands. I do not see that any better results have been obtained by utilizing human agents as mere telephones. If the conduct of affairs has become complicated, that does not appear to be any reason in itself for abandoning the method. It appears only a reason for principals and agents rising to the higher occasion while still pursuing the old successful method. Ease of communication has brought nations more closely together and complicated affairs, but it has also made possible readier personal communication between principal and agent. And therefore there is need not so much for curtailing the discretion of the agent while he is at work as for utilizing the greater facility for personal intercourse now possible. In conversation the agent will be able to impress his principals with whatever local and personal difficulties he has to contend with, and the means required for carrying out their object, and they will be able to impress him with the limits outside which it is impossible to allow him to act. It is a clear certainty that the present tendency to concentrate, not merely control, but also direction, in London, cannot go on for ever. An Empire like ours, immense in size and immensely complicated, cannot be managed in detail from headquarters. The time must come when the House of Commons and the constituencies, overburdened with the great affairs with which they have to deal, will, by the sheer force and weight of circumstances, see the advantages of leaving more to the men on the spot. They will probably insist on agents being more carefully selected. They will require them to keep in much closer personal contact with headquarters. They will expect, too, that politicians who control should already be personally acquainted, or make themselves personally acquainted, with the countries they control. But with these conditions fulfilled they will, it may be hoped, be able to leave more to the men on the spot, removing them relentlessly if they act wrongly, but while they are acting, leaving them to act in their own way.